La Veta Place: Home of Denver’s Elite

When I came across this 1889 photo of La Veta Place it took me a moment to realize I was looking at where Civic Center Park is today. The dirt roads that meet where the two boys are mounted on the burro is the intersection of Colfax Ave., Bannock, and 14th St. This intersection is now one of the most congested in downtown Denver and right outside our windows at The Post.

La Veta Place, the incredible structure in this photo, was an L-shaped luxury apartment complex built in the 1880s by David Moffat (Moffat Tunnel) and later purchased by silver baron Horace Tabor. According to the Denver Public Library’s 100th Anniversary brochure, Augusta Tabor received La Veta Place as part of their divorce settlement.

This was where Denver’s society entertained, wined and dined. Dennis Sullivan, a founder of Denver National Bank, James Cherry, attorney and alderman, and Henry Collbran of the Midland Terminal Railroad all reportedly kept apartments there.

But by 1902, La Veta Place had fallen into disrepair. The Library Board purchased it and surrounding land for $98,000. They knocked out walls and used four of the residences as a temporary library. A library worker described it as cramped and having bedbugs and bats. Eventually La Veta Place was razed and replaced with the Carnegie Library in 1909. This library building still stands and is now called the McNichols Building. Last year it was opened and used to exhibited art for the Biennial of the Americas.